{"id":10364,"date":"2017-02-26T10:49:10","date_gmt":"2017-02-26T15:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=10364"},"modified":"2017-02-26T11:58:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T16:58:16","slug":"parenting-after-etan-patz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/parenting-after-etan-patz\/","title":{"rendered":"Parenting After Etan Patz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week a New York jury found Pedro Hernandez guilty<\/a> of the murder of Etan Patz, the six-year-old boy who disappeared from his SoHo neighborhood almost forty years ago. The name \u201cEtan Patz\u201d might only ring a distant bell for Millennials, but mention the case to anyone in our parents\u2019 generation and they will involuntarily shudder. Etan was abducted while walking to his bus stop alone\u2014every parent\u2019s nightmare.<\/p>\n

Even if my peers cannot recall the details of this particular crime, we\u2019re familiar with the seismic effect it had on our lives. Etan was one of the first children to be depicted on the side of milk cartons<\/a>, and \u201cstranger danger<\/a>\u201d programs soon sprang up around the country. Fears<\/a> about child abduction skyrocketed. The culture of parenting<\/a> changed.<\/p>\n

Another effect of the Etan Patz tragedy is that it led to more expansive definitions of \u201cneglect\u201d and \u201cabandonment,\u201d leading to a different <\/em>kind of fear for some parents.<\/p>\n

Last year, Child Protective Services (CPS) investigated a Maryland couple<\/a> for neglect after they allowed their ten-year-old son and six-year-old daughter walk from their home to a nearby park. In a similar situation, a Florida mom<\/a> was arrested in 2014 for neglect after the police spotted her 7-year-old son playing at the neighborhood park without adult supervision. These cases exemplify the rise in \u201cinadequate supervision cases\u201d against otherwise-innocent parents, as The Family Defense Center<\/a>, Chicago-based nonprofit organization, has documented. The Center notes<\/a> that, under Illinois law, there is no specific statute or policy that produces these results, since \u201cthe Illinois system labels parents neglectful based on the discretion of an investigator and supervisor, and there is no required court process to review the basis for that finding.\u201d This suggests that parenting culture \u2013 changing ideas of what \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cbad\u201d parenting looks like \u2013 is driving legal outcomes.<\/p>\n

Some parents wrongfully deemed neglectful have successfully challenged those findings. The Maryland couple initially found guilty of \u201cunsubstantiated child neglect\u201d for allowing their kids to walk through their neighborhood unattended appealed and won<\/a>. In response to the case, which received national attention, Maryland\u2019s Social Services Administration issued a new policy directive<\/a> clarifying that \u201c[c]hildren playing outside or walking unsupervised does not meet the criteria for a CPS response.\u201d<\/p>\n

Child abuse and neglect is a real problem<\/a>, and some might argue that zealous investigation is better than systematic under-prosecution. But the impact on families when children are deemed \u201cneglected\u201d can be devastating, leading to a child\u2019s placement in foster care or even termination of parental rights. If these determinations are largely discretionary, often based on vague laws<\/a> against \u201cabandonment\u201d and \u201cneglect,\u201d it\u2019s up to individuals to ensure that parenting choices aren\u2019t unfairly criminalized.<\/p>\n

The Maryland case had a happy ending, but not every family has the time or the resources to fight a state finding of neglect. Absent implementation guidelines like those now in place in Maryland, parents are at risk of being punished for simply allowing their children to spend time unsupervised. Other states should take similar measures. Child safety is not incompatible with parental freedom, and we must ensure that cultural changes \u2013 like the one that followed Etan Patz\u2019s disappearance \u2013 do not lead to permanent overcorrections in the legal system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week a New York jury found Pedro Hernandez guilty of the murder of Etan Patz, the six-year-old boy who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":10365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[3,44,46,1216,1217],"tags":[1275,1273,126,1274],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-10364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amicus","category-courts","category-youth-and-education","category-legal-history","category-policing-and-law-enforcement","tag-child-welfare","tag-children","tag-civil-liberties","tag-parenting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/80\/2017\/02\/holding-hands.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZrWS-2Ha","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10364"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=10364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}